


you should’ve seen your little face burning for love

by scenedenial



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: Angst, High School AU, M/M, Parties, Sex, Sexual Tension, Slice of Life, fistfights, fucked up teenagers, handjobs, noel is a loner w anger issues, noel’s POV, swimmer! Cody, this is not a soft fic, use of homophobic slurs/language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-28 22:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20071792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scenedenial/pseuds/scenedenial
Summary: Noel might be small, small and dressed in shitty, children’s-sized hand-me-downs, but he has a sharp tongue and a sharper uppercut. People learn to steer clear of him.





	you should’ve seen your little face burning for love

**Author's Note:**

> Noel rlly just ends up the subject of all my vent stuff huh. Anyways I hope u guys enjoy!!!
> 
> Also, obligatory RPF disclaimer: none of this is meant to be taken seriously, and it doesn’t reflect how I actually think these people who I love and respect live their lives. Please don’t send it to anyone affiliated with them :’)

Noel Miller stands at four feet, eleven inches tall the day he gets into his first fistfight.

He knows _faggot_ is an ugly word before he knows the meaning of it. 

The sound of knuckles cracking against jawbone is the loudest thing in the world. _Boom._ Noel wonders if this is what it sounded like when they dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. His seventh grade class is studying World War Two. Noel thinks of the soldiers dying in trenches as a white burst of pain explodes in his skull.

Noel’s dad sits all hunched forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, the way he does when he’s disappointed or when he thinks they need to _talk_, or days like today where it’s both.

“He started it.” Noel’s mouth is still filled with the metallic aftershock of blood. The left side of his face has become an ugly, muddled palette of purples and yellows. “Fuck.”

His dad stares at him and says nothing. Noel would rather be reprimanded.

—

Noel harbors some kind of fantasy that kids become less fucking evil in high school. He’s unpleasantly surprised by the reality.

“Nice _shoes_, Miller!” No one in these hallways ever says what they mean.

Noel might be small, small and dressed in shitty, children’s-sized hand-me-downs, but he has a sharp tongue and a sharper uppercut. People learn to steer clear of him. 

He fishes quarters out of the pockets of his hoodie to pay for the soggy, lukewarm pizza that gets passed off in the cafeteria as a meal. He sits outside, back against a graffiti-plastered brick wall, rain or shine. 

A girl approaches him for a light, holding a cig between long fingers that his eyes linger on. She’s pretty in a gaunt, cat-scratch way, and even though her voice makes Noel’s throat tight, he spits at her; _“the fuck do you want, bitch?”_

Noel owns a skateboard but doesn’t really know how to use it. Over and over again, he skins his knees and forearms in the concrete lot behind his house. He sees kids from school, boys his age, in the streets at dusk. Their boards flip effortlessly under their correctly-sneakered feet. He never goes up to them, even though he wants to.

—

Noel graduates, but it’s a close thing. It’s not that he isn’t _smart_, because he is, taught himself how to code in one summer. He just fucking hates sitting in a classroom with thirty other kids who are just as bored and listless as he is. He hates devoting his time to things he couldn’t care less about.

_Noel does not apply himself in the classroom. Noel is a distraction to his peers._

He wears his cap and gown across the stage and lets his mom snap photos of him in front of the dying rhododendron on their lawn. He looks at his diploma, his name written in impersonal, curling script, and wonders what the fuck he’s doing.

—

Noel has never spoken to Cody Ko in his life.

He sits on a couch in a basement with a lukewarm beer in his hand, hating himself, hating his hasty, random decision to nod and accept the address when the girl sitting next to him on the bleachers at graduation—same last name—turned and invited him to her end-of-high-school party. 

Jesus. 

Cody—Noel knows his name, of course he does; he’s the kind of popular that transcends social boundaries and entrenches itself in legend—is doing a keg stand on the coffee table, swimmer’s muscles straining under his self-consciously tight button down. Noel watches him break off the spout, spluttering, then throw his arms up to a throng of high-pitched cheers.

“That...” Cody drawls, bleach-blonde hair falling into his face (how fucking frat-boy can you _get_), Noel wonders, “is how you do it.”

Noel slams the rest of his beer and stands up off the couch, the ground seeming to fall away underneath him as he rises. Damn.

—

Noel is drunk before he really realizes it’s happening. He walks up foreign, carpeted stairs with his knuckles white on the railing, vision swimming in and out of focus.

There’s a bathroom in a long hallway that takes him too long to find, one white door in the middle of a dozen identical ones. He sits on the ceramic edge of the bathtub and pushes his eyes into the heels of his hands. _Whew._

There’s a good expanse of time—ten, twenty minutes, an hour maybe, Noel can’t tell anymore—where he’s sure that he’ll puke, but it passes, somehow, without incident.

He stands over the sink to douse his face in cold water, the shock of it bringing him around a little. Noel looks at himself in the mirror—rivulets of water running off his chin, eyes bloodshot, lashes clumped and glimmering around them. Old scar under his chin from wiping out into a fence post. He looks like hell.

“Hey.” The voice comes, suddenly, from behind him, and if Noel wasn’t so numbed by liquor he’d jump out of his skin. He turns, feeling the cold edge of the sink press into his hip, to see Cody Ko leaning heavy against the door. _Christ_.

Cody’s platinum hair is plastered to his face with sweat, his skin is pale and glistening. That fucking ridiculous button-down is open to his stomach. He’s built, chest all muscled up. 

“You look like shit.” Noel says before his brain can catch up and stop him. 

Cody looks at him, eyes narrowing like they can’t quite focus. He takes a swaying step forward and Noel thinks, suddenly, that he might get punched.

“Hey, man—” Noel puts his hands up in the universal gesture for _hold up, it’s cool_, too fucked up for a fight.

Cody stops, turns abruptly, and vomits into the toilet bowl.

—

Noel sucks in a greedy breath when he steps onto the back porch, the cool night air bringing him back into himself.

There’s a hammock across the lawn that’s fallen down on one side, half of it dragging uselessly in the damp grass. Noel fumbles in his pocket for a cigarette.

“Can I have one?” Cody asks, voice rough around the edges from throwing up. 

“Thought student athletes don’t smoke.” Noel sits down on the concrete steps. His head aches. He wants to sleep. 

“We aren’t supposed to drink, either.” Cody spreads his palms face-up, like, _and yet._ Noel doesn’t know what the fuck to make of him. He taps a Marlboro out into Cody’s hand and holds his lighter up. Cody’s face glows pale in the flicker of flame. 

The place is emptying out; it’s after midnight. There’s a couple in the grass across the yard that Noel thinks are probably fucking. Cody sighs and sucks at the cig like he’s done it before. 

“What’s your name again, man?” He asks, and Noel feels his shoulders go stiff.

There’s no reason why Cody _would_ know him, but still. But still.

“Noel Miller.” He says to the ground.

“Okay, _Noel Miller._” There’s something about Cody’s voice, some kind of accent that Noel can’t place. “Thanks for the smoke.”

—

Noel spits blood onto the pavement and stands up. His ears are ringing.

He knows he doesn’t have a fucking chance. Three to one. A molar at his feet on the concrete. 

“Come and _get_ this, asshole.” Noel grins, full of iron and salt, and spreads his arms to the sky. 

Noel’s never known how the fuck to call it quits.

—

Noel’s jaw hurts like hell every time he swallows, every time he _breathes_. He lays on his back in his dark, stifling room and stares at the ceiling, holding a bag of frozen peas to his busted lip. 

His mom cries when she sees him, when she sees the jagged place that his tooth used to be.

“What happened, Noel?” She begs.

He doesn’t know how to explain it to her. How to make her understand what it’s _like_, what happens in the streets when you’re a skinny fucking eighteen year old with a foul, quick mouth. How do you look at your mother and tell her she raised an easy target?

Noel stays inside, mostly, until the swelling goes down. He watches rap battles on YouTube and drinks orange juice from the container. He should be packing his things to go away to school in September. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to do it at all.

—

Noel runs into a girl he went to school with at a Walgreens. She finds him with his hands full of Red Bull and Lemonheads and ibuprofen, and hip checks him with a grin. They had calculus together in their second semester; Noel nearly failed the class, too apathetic to show up half the time.

“How’s your summer?” Aleena asks. And she’s pretty, okay. Noel isn’t blind. 

“It’s, um, alright. Pretty uneventful.” Noel knows he sounds like a dickhead. Lame. “How about you?”

“Oh, pretty good!” Her teeth are white and straight and Noel suddenly feels the need to cover his own mouth. “I’m picking up some stuff for my dorm.” She’s carrying a fluffy, girly blanket. 

Noel wants to kiss her for some reason, here in the first aid aisle of the Walgreens. She’s too good for him. In every universe, she’s too good for him.

“Hey, listen.” Aleena says. “There’s some kickback happening at Kelsey’s tonight. I can give you the address if you, like, wanted to drop in.”

Noel doesn’t do _dropping in_. But he hands Aleena his phone and lets her add her number.

He knows it’s coming, but that doesn’t stop his stomach from jumping when her name shows up on the screen. 

—

Noel sticks his face under the shower head, lets the water run out of his mouth and over his chest. 

He stands at the fogged-up bathroom mirror, leaning close to examine the fading bruise on his jaw. He contemplates shaving. Decides he probably doesn’t really need to. 

Noel puts on jeans and a polo, feels like a fucking cunt, takes it all off in favor of a white t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. 

When he texts Aleena to let her know he’s on his way, his heart pounds at the base of his throat.

—

Noel takes a drag off the blunt that’s passed to him. The house is dark and hot and hazy, filled with the smell of weed and warm beer and sex. Noel watches Aleena across the room; she’s wearing a short black dress and leaning on the counter to talk to someone that Noel doesn’t recognize. 

“Cody’s here!” Someone shouts over pulsing, bass-heavy house music. Kelsey, the host, squeals when he walks into the room. Her hair is in shining ringlets around her face, and Cody, wearing a snapback and tan cargo shorts, picks her up by the waist. 

Noel can’t look away when they kiss, slow and deep. He can see Cody’s tongue snake into Kelsey’s mouth.

“Man,” says the long-haired dude on the couch next to Noel, “stop perving out and pass that shit.” Noel hands off the blunt, cheeks flaming hot. 

Noel runs into Cody in the hallway later as he comes back from the bathroom, jittery and nervous with the weed in his system and strangers surrounding him. There’s a bead of sweat trailing its way down between his shoulder blades. 

“Aw, shit.” Cody says, clapping a hand down on Noel’s shoulder. He makes Noel feel small as fuck even though they stand eye-to-eye. “I remember you, man.”

“What’s up?” Noel asks him. He thinks of Cody’s mouth on Kelsey’s and pushes the image out of his head just as fast. Shit, he’s _high_. 

“You tryna get out of here for a sec?” Cody takes a hand back through his hair. The roots have begun to grow out, dusty brown beneath the glowing yellow. “Kelsey wants me to get some fuckin’ _chips_.” 

“Like, now?” Noel asks, stupidly, overwhelmed by the noise and drugs and the way Cody’s looking at him, all hard and intense.

“Yeah, dude. C’mon. Don’t wanna go by myself.” 

—

Noel smokes a cigarette while they walk down the side of the highway in the muggy dusk. His palms are sweating. 

Cody is a _talker_, he realizes quick. But, like, _genuine_ in a way that Noel hadn’t expected him to be. He has a loud laugh, a tendency to speak with his hands.

“How’d you get that bruise, man? Looks like you got in some _shit_.” Noel sees the sign for the 7-11 they’re headed for glowing in the distance.

“Just a fight. Nothing wild.” 

“Yeah?” Cody turns towards Noel, walks backwards for a couple of steps. Noel wonders if he wears those dumb fucking wife-beaters on purpose, if he knows they show off his arms like that. “You start it?”

Noel looks at the ground and huffs out a laugh.

“I might have.”

“I knew it, Miller. You look like the type.” Cody reaches out to cuff him on the back of the head, and it’s such a foreign feeling that Noel nearly loses his breath. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him like that when they weren’t trying to bash his skull in on pavement. 

“Do I?” A car speeds by, half-drowning Noel’s voice. Cody grins at him, that weird intensity back in his eyes. 

—

Noel leans against a shelf in the snack aisle of the convenience store while Cody bites his lip, deciding between tortilla chips or barbecue. 

“Go with those.” Noel says, gesturing at the tortilla chips. “People can put dips on them and shit.”

Cody looks up at him and smiles.

“You’re right. Versatility.” 

The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The black and white tiled floor feels sticky under Noel’s air forces. Cody’s walk is lithe, gliding, as he crosses the store to grab up queso and bean dip. 

“Hey,” Cody calls back, “Aleena invited you, yeah?”

“Uh huh.” Noel says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts. He feels buzzy and lightheaded. “You know her?”

“She’s Kelsey’s best friend.” Cody runs his nails across his forearm, scratches a patch of red into the skin. “You tryna fuck her?” 

“I mean,” Noel swallows, not quite sure where this line of conversation is going, “I _would_.” 

“Then why don’t you?” Cody cocks an eyebrow, and it makes a flash of irritation work its way through Noel’s chest. As if Cody knows what it’s like, what with his swimmer’s body and his blonde hair and his even smile. 

“Man, you think she’d get on _this_?” Noel gestures at himself, at his chest that’s all bone and no muscle. It’s a joke, the self-deprecating kind that Noel knows in and out, but Cody’s brows set in a way that seems more or less serious. 

Cody steps closer to Noel, and it makes Noel’s heart beat, his neck tense. 

“Listen, _Noel_.” Cody’s voice is low, low, and Noel’s breathing has gone strange. What the _fuck._ “I don’t see why she wouldn’t.”

Then Cody’s hand is on Noel’s hip in this soft, secret way, and Noel is so surprised that he can’t say a thing for a moment. His cheeks burn like fever.

Then Noel comes back to himself and is twisting away, throwing his hands up in front of himself.

“What the _fuck_, faggot?” It’s a knee jerk reaction. Noel’s ears are ringing.

He sees Cody’s face crumple minutely, then harden again. He shoves his armful of chips and dip onto the shelf at his elbow, and Noel realizes Cody could probably kill him if he wanted to.

“Listen, bitch.” Cody grabs the collar of Noel’s shirt, pulls him in so their faces are centimeters apart. Noel can smell the weed and liquor on Cody’s breath. He lands a closed-fist hit on Cody’s chest, wriggles in his grasp. “I fucking saw you staring at my mouth back there. You’re not fooling anybody.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Noel spits. “Or I’ll fuck _you_ up.”

“Oh yeah, and what? Lose another tooth?” Cody’s voice is full of vitriol. His grip on Noel is iron-tight. 

Noel’s ears are on fire. His heart feels fit to explode out of his chest. 

“Fuck you.” Noel’s voice sounds raspy and thick and not like his own. Cody’s eyes are so bright under the lights.

—

Noel realizes what’s happening too late. 

A bone-deep shiver tears through him; he feels his knees go weak. It’s like there’s static buzzing in the back of his head. 

Cody’s knuckles press into Noel’s throat and Noel chokes against them, panicking, thrashing, desperate to get away unnoticed. 

But then Cody is looking down and whispering, _oh, fuck, Noel,_ and his cheeks are going bright pink and Noel _lets go_.

—

Noel Miller stands at five feet, eight inches tall the day he gives Cody Ko a rushed, sloppy handjob in the bathroom of a 7-11. 

Cody is breathing heavy, face flushed and glowing bright through a sheen of sweat. He’s pressed into the cracked, stained ceramic of the sink, his fingers tight around Noel’s wrist.

Noel fumbles with the zipper of Cody’s shorts, hard and sweating and too overwhelmed to think. 

“C’mon, Noel, _come on_.” Noel doesn’t even have a hand on him and Cody is already sighing and cursing with his head pressed back into the graffiti-covered mirror. 

Cody says, _mm, Noel, just like that_, when Noel finally manages to pull him out of his boxers, and it flips some switch in Noel’s head. Like the moment you take the shot that pushes you over from _buzzed_ to _drunk_. 

Noel gets a hand in Cody’s hair and tugs, experimentally. Cody whines and bucks his hips and Noel has never had this much power in his fucking _life_. He’s tripping off it. 

“Have—have you ever done this before?” Cody’s voice is barely more than a panted whisper. Noel shakes his head. 

Cody places a trembling hand over Noel’s, moves them in tandem. The drag of Noel’s fingers tugging over Cody’s dick makes his own cock swell, makes his teeth clamp into his lower lip.

“Like that.” Cody murmurs. Noel can feel him tensing, shivering, and presses a palm to his torso in order to feel it all better. “I knew you were a whore. I knew it as soon as I saw you watching me.”

Cody’s words have a fucking _embarrassing_ effect on Noel, make him dig his nails into Cody’s shoulder and moan. 

“Faster.” Cody whines, and his eyes are closed now. He looks like a painting. He looks like something Noel never let himself imagine. 

Noel jerks him off quick, the angle awkward and his technique clumsy, but Cody moans and clenches at Noel’s hips, and when he comes—Noel can’t help but stick his fingers in the way of the mess out of dazed curiosity—he buries his forehead in Noel’s shaking shoulder.

Cody’s cum is warm in Noel’s mouth, tastes wrong and dirty but also like something Noel wants _more_ of. The thought alone makes him shiver.

“Here, here.” Cody is gasping, tugging at the waistband of Noel’s shorts. “Lemme get you.”

Noel comes _hard_, comes clutching at Cody’s shoulders to steady himself, biting back a string of obscenities and quiet cries. 

“There you go.” Cody murmurs, rubbing his knuckles all gentle across Noel’s ribs. “Better?”

Noel steps back, heart pounding and head spinning, thighs a sticky mess. He’s dimly aware of Cody running a wad of paper towels under the sink, handing them off to Noel. He cleans himself up in a daze, tugs his shorts and dampened boxers back up. 

Cody sits back against the sink, looking at Noel with this expression on his face that Noel can’t read. 

—

Noel rubs sleep from his eyes.

“I’m not gay.” He says. He’s laying on his back in Cody’s bedroom, naked from the waist down, staring up at the ceiling.

“So what?” Cody says, licking a stripe from Noel’s belly button to the place where his pubic hair begins. “I’m not either.” 

Noel buries his hand in Cody’s hair, tugs his fingers through the place where the blonde has grown out even further. His hips jerk up to meet Cody’s wet, hot mouth.

—

Noel lets Cody fuck him for the same reason that he fights guys in the street. The adrenaline rush. The moment where the floor falls away from under his feet and nothing else exists in his mind, nothing else exists in the world.

_“Pretty boy.”_ Cody whispers in his ear as he fucks up into Noel. When they kiss, Cody’s tongue worries the spot where Noel’s missing tooth used to be. 

“Fuck off.” Noel pulls Cody’s head down, bites hard at his lower lip. 

Noel’s never known how the fuck to call it quits.


End file.
